Of ducks, bulls and other lessons from a Santhal village

Preface: This three-part series chronicles the rural awakening of a Bengaluru student, where he talks about what he saw, felt and carried with him back to the city. This second write-up is about his visit to a village for field work among rural children. 

Fieldwork? Me? How did I land up here? Just a few days ago I was in Bengaluru, sipping a cup of coffee in my university’s cafeteria and thinking that I needed to do something in this semester-end break. These were my thoughts when I was going to Pondehasa village in East Singbhum district of Jharkhand for a week-long stay after my 5-day training at Tribal Culture Centre, Jamshedpur. 

I was welcomed by one Sukumar Suren who was with me during the training in Jamshedpur. He offered me a drink called handiya – a local beer made from fermented rice found everywhere in Jharkhand. 

“Now you are a proper Jharkhandi,” Sukumar said as he started his scooter to give me a tour of the place I was supposed to stay at. 

We first went to his house, located about 2 km from Pondehasa in Sundar Nagar, where I was welcomed with a lota (small metal urn) filled with water to wash my feet before entering the house. There I learned about the customs of the Santhal tribe, the food they eat and other daily practices. I spent time with his wife, brother, a two-year-old daughter who only talked in vowels, and a street dog who used to come mid-conversation and lick our feet. 

Also Read | Bengaluru boy’s confessions from Jharkhand village

We ate rice, daal which had the calcium-rich munga (moringa oleifera or drumstick tree) flowers, and saag (leafy green vegetables) which was cooked not in oil but in water. 

While eating, I glanced up and saw a clock hanging on the wall, with its hands rotating in an anti-clockwise direction. Sukumar told me that the Santhals believe in everything natural and that’s why the hands of the clock follow the earth’s rotation. He said that it was his idea and that he had manufactured and sold about 300 such clocks so far. 

During the conversation, I also learned about their strong work ethics. The local saying goes, “Amdom manmi kana sem dangri kanam, manmi kan khanem katham anjom aa, dangri kana enkhan katha do bam anjom aa” (Are you a human or a bullock? If you are a human, you will listen to me and if you are a bullock, you will not. If you are a bullock then remain seated but if you are a human, stand up and start working). 

Santhal mythology

As more people joined us, the conversation veered towards Santhal mythology. The community believes that all life forms came from the eggs of a duck. There are a limited number of souls, which get transferred between animals and humans. The nature of the animal determines the nature of the human, for instance, a fox’s soul will make a cunning man while that of a lion will make a brave man. 

I also got to know the beauty of the Santhali language, which has different words for precise actions. So umu means taking a bath with a mug while dabrah means taking a bath by diving into the water. Another interesting discussion that took place was about their annual hunting using traditional weapons. They play the nagara to ward off the animals, and the ones which remain get hunted. They say it is a way of keeping the wild animal population in check. 

Also Read | The ‘art houses’ of Odisha’s Santal tribe

Our conversation had to be stopped because Sukumar had some Panchayat duty to attend to. So I had to figure out how and where to start my work. I wanted to conduct focus group discussions (FGD) with children and also talk with the tribal women about family planning, family size choices, etc. I did not speak their language. And why would anyone answer these personal questions to a 19-year-old? 

Sukumar dropped me back to Pondehasa village where I met the mukhya (village head). I asked him about the functioning of the government primary school and made a mental note to put the same questions to the children when I met them. We then visited the school and the primary health care centre to get an idea of the facilities available. 

Village stay

I got a rough estimate of the village layout and faced a final problem. Where would I stay? There was a public library near the entrance to Pondehasa, which had not been in use for some time. It was locked. To get the key, we had to meet Sita Kisku, the jal sahaiya (A jal sahaiya works under SBM – Swachh Bharat Mission and looks after water management issues in a village which includes building bathrooms, fixing tubewells etc) of the village, who was also called Dr Didi. She gave me the keys, informing me that the library needed to be cleaned. 

From Sita di, I also got to know that the mukhya was planning to clean a section of the village and some children would also be there to help. I thought of joining them in order to meet with some kids, develop a rapport with them and later interview them. 

The work started, and I joined the four adults and eight children who were about to begin the cleaning exercise. We made brooms from small tree branches and picked up the plastic wrappers strewn about as the kids yelled at the drivers of vehicles passing by because the wind blew away the collected leaves. The adults laughed at the children, and the work did not seem like a boring chore at all. Soon, we were finished, all sweaty but proud of the clean road. 

In the process, I had befriended all the kids. I inquired about their schools, the availability of facilities like toilets there and the quality of mid-day meals, and sought the consent of the adults present there about taking notes of the conversation. 

Also Read | Sal-sufficient: Leafy tableware of Odisha’s Santal tribe

Interviewing the children turned out to be more fun than I had imagined. Our conversations started with questions about their school, the subjects they were studying and their teachers but it soon drifted along random tangents. 

The highlight of my fieldwork was sitting in a circle with the lovely children while the sun was setting, knowing about them, and trying my best to maintain a comfortable space where they could share whatever they had on their minds. By the end of my stay, I had conducted five group discussions and talked to about 25 children. 

The lead image at the top shows a row of houses at Pondehasa village in East Singbhum district of Jharkhand (Photo by Kinshuk Ghosh)

Kinshuk Ghosh is a second-year student at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, and pursuing Bsc B.Ed in Physics. Over the break after finishing his first semester, he attended a five-day training for Development Corridor Fellow at Jamshedpur conducted by VikasAnvesh Foundation, Pune, on Panchayati Raj, and problems afflicting primary education, public health, etc. He then stayed in Pondehasa village to understand children’s perspectives on the conditions of primary school and women’s childbirth choices.